by S. E. Lynes
‘He was here,’ Carol says. ‘With me.’
DC McGann says nothing. He is looking at Graham.
‘I-I w-was here.’ Graham glances towards the door, his mouth wet and ugly with pain. She knows she should speak to him, offer him something, but no words come.
‘We’ll take some fingerprints anyway. It’s procedure, nothing to worry about, just to eliminate you from our inquiries. Mrs Watson, you have other children?’
‘Yes, my daughter. She’s eleven. She was here an’ all.’
‘And where is your daughter now?’
‘Sorry? Oh, upstairs, asleep. We didn’t realise it was so late. We were watching telly but I’d just this minute said we should be getting to bed. We haven’t got a decent telly at the moment, just the little black-and-white portable my friend Pauline gave us—’
‘Mum?’ Graham’s eyes are black. ‘S-stop t-talking. Just … f-f … stop.’ He stands, sends the chair into the wall behind him. Head down, he marches out of the kitchen. A second later, his footsteps hammer up the stairs.
‘I need a cigarette,’ Carol says.
‘Of course,’ DC McGann replies.
‘I’ll come with you now. To the hospital. I just need a minute.’ She stumbles towards the back door, fumbling in her pocket for her fags.
Outside, the houses are dark and flat against the bruised sky. The silence hits her – its rareness. The air is as cool as water. She turns in a slow circle. Here and there, in other houses, strips of light shine. Her own kitchen window makes a clean white mouth in the wall. She stands still and alone, a damp chill on her arms. She wills it to penetrate her bones, this chill, to harm her in some way, bring her down. Ted, Jim, Graham, Nicola, coat, bag and shoes, hospital, morgue, husband, death, her little girl, innocent, brainy, stuck in the wrong life, waking up to what? She will have to leave Graham here. She has to go and see Ted. It is her fault he’s died. It’s all her fault. She has known this since the moment they got to this house. By leaving him, she’s killed him – that’s what Graham meant, and he is right. Her son will hate her for ever.
Darkness is all around, pushing in towards the house. The street lamp is broken, smashed by bloody wolf-kids. Her neighbour’s garden still has a radiator in it. Somebody should call the council. Somebody should report it. Somebody … somebody should do something.
Twenty-Eight
Richard
1992
In the loft, Richard studies the labels scrawled in marker pen on the sides of the boxes. Christmas decorations; Books – Richard; Books – Richard; Books – Richard; Camping equipment, smaller pieces. The tent and sleeping bags will be up here too somewhere. And here: Photographs and reels. This last box he pulls towards him. Inside are photo albums with padded covers, which he forbids himself to look at now but carries to the edge of the hatch to take downstairs with him. An old cine camera in its original box is there too, and a tray of films in round tins: Wedding 1956; Richard 1959–1965; Richard 1966–1968. The other labels are indistinct or blank. 1968. He was ten or so. He can’t remember his father using the cine camera when he was a teenager. It was around then that Dad became the head teacher at the grammar school, a fact kept quiet by both of them once Richard went there the following year from St Peter’s primary.
But he’s supposed to be looking for the book. And after another ten minutes and much fighting against the temptation to thumb through the old texts he studied as a sixth-former, he finds Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the second of the book boxes. The dust on his hands is beginning to irk, but he opens the cover eagerly.
My darling Richard, I love you, always will. I know you can’t love me, but that is not your fault. Your friend always, Alexis.
She was so gracious. He will never forget her face when he told her, visibly working through her shock, confusion, embarrassment, all the while trying not to let it show in case she hurt him. Oh, Alexis.
‘It’s got nothing to do with you,’ he said, adding quickly: ‘You’re as beautiful as any girl could be. And I’ve loved you since we were six; I have and still do. But I can’t love you like that. I can’t love any girl like that. I can’t love girls, you see. So we can’t be married. It isn’t fair to either of us. I’m so sorry.’
It seems to him, remembering that he did say all this, that with her, talking was not so difficult as it went on to become. He misses her. Misses the version of himself he was when he was with her – open, talkative. They used to talk for hours! He needs to find his way back to how he was then. He needs to return to himself, just as Graham does. He needs to move forward, just as Graham does. Maybe this is why Graham consumes his thoughts more than the others. All the lads are looking for the light of forgiveness. But he and Graham are still scared to come out of the dark.
* * *
The following Thursday at 3 p.m., Graham fills the doorway – the haunted outline that Richard holds ready-sketched in his mind. He sits down, looks at the floor and brushes imaginary dust off his right leg.
‘All right,’ he says.
‘Well, thanks. How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you for asking.’
‘Do you always say that?’
‘What?’
‘“Very well, thank you for asking”?’
‘D-dunno. My mum always says it. She t-taught us to be p-p-polite, you know?’ Graham looks towards the window. ‘So we could speak nice to the prison officers when we grew up.’ He smirks at his own flippant remark, shifts in his seat, moves as far back into it as he can. He looks a little better: still thin, of course, but muscular, with an athlete’s sprung potential for physicality, for violence.
‘Last week you began telling me about Jonathan Livingston Seagull,’ Richard begins. ‘Did you say you’d read the whole thing?’
‘Even I can read a book that short.’
They both smile at each other.
‘I dug out my old copy,’ Richard says. ‘It was in the loft with my university bits and pieces.’
‘Sound.’ Graham’s smile fades. He looks at his thumb, worries the skin around the nail until he’s made a tiny ridge. He puts his teeth to it, pulls a shaving of white skin away into his mouth. ‘What did you think – of the b-book? Did you still l-like it or what?’
Richard has made a loose plan of what to say, and for the first time since he met Graham, he feels prepared. ‘I thought to myself, I bet Graham knows this isn’t just a story about a seagull. And I also thought I should give a copy to all the lads who come and see me from now on.’ This is the truth. Reading the book, he remembered his younger self and the impact it had at the time. Although Graham is twenty-four he is, like most of the inmates, held in a kind of stasis, pinned, perhaps, to the moment when his life outside came to an end, to late adolescence and all its intensity and questing, flippancy and lunacy. ‘So I wanted to thank you for putting me on to it.’
‘Ha.’ Graham folds his hands together and tucks them between his legs. He looks directly at Richard for the second time, albeit fleetingly, with those dark and soulful eyes. Richard remembers him, weeks ago, at the door to this chapel, and it seems there is less fear there than that first day. He imagines him now with longer hair, with skin that has seen the sun, exercise in his blood.
‘I mean,’ Graham says, interrupting his thoughts, ‘it’s all about breaking out, isn’t it?’
‘I think so, partly.’
‘I really liked the way, though, that even though he went higher up than the other seagulls, he didn’t f-forget his m-mates, did he? I mean, getting out of the crowd was one thing, but he was like, “Hey, lads, it’s great up here, c-come on up.”’
‘That’s right. And—’
‘And,’ Graham interrupts him; he actually interrupts him, ‘I like the way it’s written. I mean, some of the sentences, about the sun on the water and the flying and that.’
‘You’re right. I’d forgotten that. If you hadn’t mentioned it last week, my copy would still be in the loft and I’d never have r
ediscovered it. And what about Jonathan? Do you identify with him?’
Graham pushes out his bottom lip and raises his eyebrows as if to suggest either that he doesn’t have a clue or that he isn’t going to be caught that easily.
‘Nah. Well, yeah. Well, I mean …’ He hugs himself. ‘I mean, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Not necessarily flying off, more … when I was reading the book, I did think about flying off. I mean, I’m doing English A level and I suppose that’s me learning to fly sort of thing, isn’t it?’
‘Education can give you wings.’ Richard can barely contain himself. ‘Who gave you the book?’
‘I nicked it. From here, like. I was going to ask Tracy to get it for us, but it was quicker just to nick it.’
Richard’s mouth drops open in shock.
‘Don’t panic.’ Graham spreads his hands. ‘I put it back.’
Richard covers his mouth to hide his … his what? Not shock, not now. Amusement would be more accurate. It’s not funny, of course, but the thought of a prisoner stealing from inside a prison tickles him. ‘Who’s Tracy?’
‘She’s …’ Graham looks at the floor and sighs. ‘We’re … we’ve got a kid together. A girl. Jade, her name is.’
‘Right.’ Graham has a child. Many of the lads have children – and what of them? Where do they end up?
Graham is looking at him blankly.
‘How old is she, your daughter?’
‘Five.’
Richard wonders how old Graham must have been when Jade was born but can’t calculate and talk at the same time. ‘You must miss her.’
‘Jade? She was only six months, not even that, when I came inside. I miss Tracy. Mind you, I couldn’t even tell you how many sugars she takes in her tea anymore.’ He scratches his head. ‘You lose touch, like.’
‘Memory fades.’ Richard has a clear vision of his mother, sitting on her armchair with a home-made buttered scone on a plate on her knee. She could make a batch of scones in under half an hour – used to get the giggles rising to the challenge for Richard and Alexis when they arrived home, starving, from school. Perhaps the memories of his mother will fade eventually, or perhaps, like today, they will be just as clear, but happier.
‘Most of all,’ Graham continues, ‘more than missing anyone, I mean, I feel like there’s all this w-w-wasted time. Wasted, you know? In here. What’s it called when you can’t settle an argument, and you tell your story and you say – right, that’s it, ladies and gentlemen, what am I then?’
‘Judgement?’
‘That’s not the word I was thinking of, but yeah. Wait a minute.’ He bites his thumb again, holds the bit of skin between his teeth and clicks his fingers. He picks the bit out from his teeth and flicks it across the room. ‘Arbitration, that’s it. But maybe your word is better.’
‘Not at all, I—’
‘I mean, I just … and it gets stronger – no, it gets heavier, that’s it; it gets heavier when I stop the drugs. It always does; that’s why I end up starting them again.’ Words are tumbling from him, fast, his voice urgent. ‘Since I read that book, it’s still heavy but I feel like I can carry it, d’you know what I mean? I d-don’t want to go back to the drugs. I want … I want to find another way, I really … Wh-what with me coming up for parole and that, I mean. I c-can’t go back out there in this state, can I? I can barely walk for the weight. It’s not like I need to get it off my chest; it’s more like I need to get it off my back, d’you know what I mean? In court, you don’t set it all down, not really. It’s just the stupid details.’ His whole face screws up.
‘What do you mean, the details? Isn’t that the truth?’
‘Well, yeah. But you’re judged on the facts of the crime, not whether your dad was a bastard or whatever. The truth is somewhere … between … Oh, I don’t know what I’m going on about.’
He is talking about context, Richard thinks. Of an act taken in isolation rather than in the framework of a life. ‘That’s OK,’ he says. ‘You’re doing—’
‘So there’s this seagull, and I’m thinking, that’s all very well, mate, but I couldn’t fly anywhere anyway. I’m too heavy with it all, do you know what I mean? Even if I learn all there is to learn in the world …’ He leans forward and points both thumbs at his back. ‘I still need to get rid of this lot before I can fly.’
Richard holds his breath and nods.
‘I mean, just now, you asked me who Tracy was, and honest to God, I didn’t know what to say. Tracy was my girlfriend. But that’s not the whole story, is it? She’s the mother of my child but I can’t expect her to wait for me, not this version of me. I need to be better. I need to be better, Richard. And every time I think about some other twat, you know, being with her, I can feel myself losing it. But it’s still just the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t say you’re a robber just because you stole something, can you? I mean you can, but you might be, say, a teacher or something else as well. Like you, Rich. You can’t say you’re perfect just because you’re religious. You can’t say you’ve never done anything wrong, can you?’
Richard isn’t sure what Graham is asking him for. ‘I would never say that.’
‘And I’m not just a murderer, am I? That’s not all I am. Or does that one thing just f-f-f … obliterate everything else, for ever?’ Graham sways in his chair, purses his lips and blows out a jet of air. ‘M-m-my dad. He … h-he p-p-passed away and that, about a year after we moved out of the refuge.’ He looks as if he’s been kicked in the shin but doesn’t want to admit how much it hurts.
‘Was he ill?’
He pushes both hands under his thighs. He nods steadily, ten, perhaps twenty times, flaring his nostrils, leaning back then forward, almost bucking. ‘He … h-he got m-mugged. B-beaten up, like, you know? They k-k-killed him.’
‘Who did?’
Graham shrugs. ‘Just thugs. Probably druggies. Irony’s ironic.’
‘So they never found his killers?’
‘They never looked, not really. I mean, they went through the motions, but he was a skank. No stranger to a night in the cell, like, d’you know what I mean? It was par for the c-course with him, getting drunk, getting into fights, just … that time he didn’t make it to the morning. But I think about it a lot, like. I think about it all the time sometimes.’
‘I can imagine.’ It must be indelible, a death like that – the kind of event one reads about in the papers. Richard thinks of his own guilt. He wasn’t with his mother when she died, but he can see now that her passing was at least natural, and peaceful, and private. The thought provides strange comfort for him, set against this squalid public end.
Unprompted, Graham continues. ‘If I’d stepped in a bit more, y-you know? If I’d had the balls to stand up to him, she’d … my mum would’ve been able to put up with it. But I didn’t. So we left. And he couldn’t cope. I helped her leave him. I helped k-kill him.’ He sighs and stands up, walks over to the window and pulls up the blind. He looks out and talks to the glass pane, to the courtyard beyond. ‘So I just wanted someone to hear it all together, like, you know, instead of just one bit of it, do you know what I mean?’ He turns to Richard and lowers his voice. ‘I want someone not perfect exactly, but g-good, like, to hear it p-properly.’ He returns to his chair and slumps in it. ‘I need arbitration. I need someone to take the weight off my back.’
For a moment, Richard is too stunned to speak.
‘Talking will help you lift that weight,’ he says finally. ‘It’s why so many people find comfort in God.’
‘God.’ Graham presses his lips tight. ‘I don’t know if I’m up to Him yet, m-mate. N-not someone like me. I was thinking I could start with you.’
Twenty-Nine
Carol
1985
The morgue is cold. Carol pulls her cardigan across her chest and folds her arms. Still the icy air comes at the hollow of her collarbone. The smell of disinfectant hits the back of her throat. She screws
up her eyes against the bright white light. Here they are, down in the basement of a hospital, halfway to being buried, and the light is too bloody bright.
Behind the glass, white contours on a table rise and fall. She stands next to DC McGann and looks in, thinking about what is under the sheet. The last time she was in this hospital was with Jim.
‘I’d expected him to be in a drawer,’ she says. ‘You know, like on the television.’ She can make out Ted’s feet under the sheet, his gut, the peaks and troughs of him, hills and valleys, the whole rolling landscape. ‘It’s him, though,’ she says. ‘I can tell.’
DC McGann glances at her. ‘Ready?’
She nods. This copper is no more than a boy; poor bugger, having to do this.
‘Now as I explained in the car, Mrs Watson, you need to prepare for the fact that there has been considerable damage to the face, OK?’ He walks away and through a door at the far end of the glass divide.
She holds her breath. He disappears for a moment before reappearing on the other side of the glass. Slowly he peels back the sheet. Some TV series, she thinks. Some murder victim. Ted emerges inch by inch. His black hair is matted, crusted with dried blood, his face a pulp, save for one shiny bulge, hard and round and split: his eye. She steps away from the glass and puts her hands to her knees while the bouncing blackness clears.
‘My God.’
Taking in what she hopes is enough breath, she rolls her body slowly into a standing position, leaving her head until last. She looks in again, hand over her mouth. Ted’s head is still a mess.
‘Can you take the whole sheet off?’ She mouths the words, mimes the action with one hand.
The DC hesitates. He shakes his head but looks unsure. She feels suddenly old, old enough to be his mother.